Chicago Goes 6 Days Without A Fatal Shooting

CHICAGO (CBS) — Chicago went for more than six days without a fatal shooting for the first time since at least January 2013.

Most recently, a person was found shot to death on Saturday afternoon in the West Side Austin neighborhood.

Officers responded at 12:23 p.m. to a call of a person lying face down in a vacant lot in the 5400 block of West Ohio, according to Chicago Police.

Antoine D. Watkins, 22, was dead at the scene, according police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He lived about a block away.

It was not immediately clear how Watkins ended up dead in the lot, but an autopsy Sunday found he died of multiple gunshot wounds and his death was ruled a homicide, according to the medical examiner’s office. Police did not know when the shooting occurred.

The last fatal shooting happened six days earlier at 10:48 a.m. Feb. 26 in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side.

James Morris, 26, was sitting in the driver’s seat of a parked minivan in the 1300 block of South Kedzie when a silver car drove by slowly and someone inside opened fire, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Morris, who lived in the same neighborhood, was shot multiple times and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:15 a.m., authorities said.

Only once since January 2013 had the city gone more than four days without a fatal shooting. Between 12:52 a.m. Dec. 18 and 2:11 p.m. Dec. 22, 2016, no one was shot to death in Chicago.

So far in 2017, there have been 101 homicides in Chicago, according to Sun-Times records. Of those 101 victims 96 were shot to death, including two killed by Chicago Police. Four people have been fatally stabbed, and 2-month-old Aliya Acosta died of child abuse.

The death Thursday of 4-month-old Janylah Mack was ruled a homicide from complications of injuries her mother suffered in an assault while pregnant with her on Oct. 31, 2016, authorities said. Devon Thomas, 22, was charged with murder and aggravated battery in November for the attack that killed his 3-year-old son, Tayveon Thomas, and left Janylah’s then-pregnant mother wounded.